In the Company of Fools
It was tempting to get involved in the back-and-forth election bickering, but I quickly came to the stark realization that trying to reason with Obama’s followers is a fool’s errand. He has been actively campaigning for two years now and in that time has been unable to provide us with a single reason to place him at the helm of this country, unless of course you wish to see harm come to the United States in which case Barack Obama may be the single most qualified candidate for the position.
He advertises himself exclusively in vague and meaningless terminology like “hope” and “change,” but consistently runs into trouble every time he gives these terms substance. He has successfully hidden his sordid political past and downplayed his numerous affiliations to terrorists, bigots, and many others who wish this county ill. His understanding of basic economics is shamefully lacking, his management experience is non-existent, and the Messianic lens through which he projects himself carries a dark spiritual subtext.
Even as a nuclear Russia again embraces Communism and antipathy toward the United Staes, even as avowed American enemies North Korea and Iran are on the cusp of producing nuclear weapons (and all this to say nothing of China’s nuclear power and massive military build-up), Barack Obama wishes to drastically cut military spending and make the U.S. the first nation to utterly dismantle its nuclear arsenal.
From a support standpoint, he is backed by a conglomerate of hatred. Wholly disparate groups are bound by a common desire to seek retribution for some perceived social injustice. Nearly everyone voting for Obama this election is doing so in an attempt to get even. Few, if any, are voting for him in the likely hope that his policies will prosper this great nation. I fear his candidacy will mark the beginning of an internal war in which this country will tear itself apart as the might of the federal government is brought to bear against its own people instead of acting as a shield to protect those people from enemies both foreign and domestic. And that is precisely when an aggressor will strike.
Barack’s followers look to him for their inspiration and yes, their “hope.” Personally, my hope is in Jesus Christ alone, and my political inspiration comes from the promise of freedom that is, for now, still available in the United States. John McCain’s POW experience is not inspiring because John McCain is inspiring (far from it). It is inspiring because we see what hell a man will go through to defend freedom. It is freedom itself–that precious, delicate, and rare gift–that inspires me (and presumably most Conservatives). To look for hope and lasting inspiration in a human being is not just unbiblical (as if the Left cares), but it is precisely how freedom is destroyed and a tyrant is raised to power.
In spite of all of this and far more, Obama’s followers are numerous, determined, and utterly deaf to reason. His appeal is exclusively emotional, but powerful nonetheless. Logic cannot be used to persuade those whose allegiance is prostituted to whomever can deliver the next emotional high so I would unfortunately submit that engaging in political discourse with his people is an exercise in futility.
The Big Oh No
For a while it was humorous to watch masses of adoring Liberals swoon over the empty platitudes of Barack Obama. How anyone could be so enamored with what is essentially an empty box is beyond me, but then so is most Liberal behavior. As time goes by, however, Obama’s true character is being revealed and it is becoming apparent that the darkness in this box is not, in fact, emptiness, but rather something sinister.
Already well documented is his decision to sit under the “spiritual” guidance of an anti-American racist for over 20 years, his decision to be married to an anti-American racist by an anti-American racist, his decision to have his children baptized by an anti-American racist, and his decision to spend Sundays subjecting his family to the “spiritual” guidance of an anti-American racist. Just one of these decisions generally represents sufficient political liability to doom any candidacy, but curiously the perpetually race-obsessed Left has turned a collective blind eye to this disturbing trend.
So why does Obama get a free pass on affiliations that would normally invite comparisons to Nazi Germany from the Left? The short answer is that he is now the Democrat nominee. The party has made a commitment and internal criticism at this point could likely undermine its effort to secure the Presidency. And while there is something to be said for integrity and consistency, these once laudable traits are now considered expendable to a party dominated by an end-justifies-the-means philosophy.
Another reason his political baggage is disregarded by the Left is that Obama is Black. This is more significant than many on the Right realize and far less significant than many on the Left believe. Conservatism doesn’t consider race when evaluating an individual’s fitness for the office of the President, so Conservatives tend to underestimate the impact that dark skin has on Liberals. Conversely, Liberalism, with its long and sordid history of racial hyperfocus, is either incapable or unwilling (or both) to engage in a discussion without prominently factoring race into the equation. The reasons for this stark disparity in worldview are numerous, but also largely beside the point in this context as the proverbial Race Card, while significant, isn’t Barack’s trump card (though we can expect it to be played often throughout his campaign.)
The longer, more accurate reason why Obama is excused for surrounding himself with bad company, and for making various statements revealing—you guessed it—racism and antipathy toward the United States is that he will attempt to bring about what Jonah Goldberg calls a “Fascist moment” in American history. Stripped of the racial baggage introduced by Adolf Hitler, Fascism is the form of government that yesterday’s Progressives and today’s Liberals have been pining for for the better part of a century.
The term “Fascism” as we use it today is Benito Mussolini’s Italian Fascism, which gets its name from the Italian word fascio, meaning “bundle.” It was so named for Mussolini’s belief that power is achievable only by the synergistic joining of elements that alone are weak, but when bound together, find great strength.
Loosely defined, Fascism is a religion of the State; one in which government assumes the roles traditionally ascribed to God—savior, provider, comforter, moral law giver, etc. By way of contrast, Conservatism asserts that government should exist only to the extent necessary to allow individuals to live freely, while Fascism views the individual as nothing more than an insignificant drop in the vast ocean of the State—a drop whose purpose and identity are inextricably bound to his contribution to the collective.
The State not only is authority which governs and molds individual wills with laws and values of spiritual life, but it is also power which makes its will prevail abroad. [...] For the Fascist, everything is within the State and [...] neither individuals nor groups are outside the State. [...] For Fascism, the State is an absolute, before which individuals or groups are only relative. [...] [Classical] Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual.
— Benito Mussolini
More succinctly stated is the Fascist motto, “Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato” or “Everything within the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.” It is this same mindset that framed Obama’s words as he addressed a crowd in Oregon this past May:
We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times…and then just expect other countries are going to say “OK.” That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen.
Strictly speaking, I don’t know how many proper leaders drive SUVs. Nor do I know how much they eat or at which specific temperature they keep their homes. But while these may or may not be examples of leadership, they are most certainly examples of freedom. Each of the three activities Obama disparages is one of individual volition—free will. Each is furthermore an act of free will involving private property: our SUVs, our homes, and in the case of eating as much as we want (abortionists, sit up and take notice) our bodies. In his view, the choices we make and the things that we own are all subject to the higher moral authority of the government. The very food I eat is limited in scope not by my appetite or health concerns, but rather by a predetermined number handed down from the government. “Everything within the State, nothing outside the State.”
If, as Obama clearly believes, the United States is accountable to “other countries” then, by definition, so are her citizens. It is impossible to attain accountability on a collective scale while permitting autonomy on an individual one. In lieu of maintaining freedom by reigning in government, Barack is plainly stating that individual freedoms must be curtailed; a sacrifice to appease foreign nations. Obama’s America has a responsibility to others that outweighs the responsibility she has to her own citizens. This may mark the first time in her history that “government for ‘the people’” refers to foreigners.